5/8/2023 0 Comments Look at the sky tale of usZeus, king of the gods, unleashed the flood to punish people for their misdeeds. Greek mythology associates Aquarius with the deluge that wiped out all of humanity except for Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha. Aquarius in history and star loreĪquarius is tied to an abundance of water, sometimes as a blessing and sometimes as a curse. However, its appearance in photographs is quite stunning. This nebula spreads out across 28 arcminutes, almost as large as a full moon. Although the Helix is magnitude 7.3, it’s hard to observe because its light extends over a large space. The Helix lies about 20 degrees below the stars Alpha and Beta. Another well-known nebula, the Helix Nebula ( NGC 7293) lies in Aquarius. This 8th-magnitude planetary nebula looks like the planet Saturn because its gassy halo includes a thin extension on both sides that look like rings. It shines a bit brighter at magnitude 9 but is a smaller and less noticeable grouping of stars.Ĭlose to M72 and M73 is the Saturn Nebula, or NGC 7009. An open cluster in the same area as M72 is M73, just over 1 degree east from the globular cluster. While you can see M2 with binoculars, M72 is magnitude 9.4, so you’ll need a telescope. If you draw a line from Alpha, through Beta, and extend it 11 to 12 degrees forward, you’ll run into M72. M72 is another globular cluster that can be found in Aquarius. This globular cluster shines at magnitude 6.5 and lies about 37,000 light-years away. M2 is above a line drawn between the Alpha and Beta stars. The globular cluster M2 resides in Aquarius. Deep-sky treasures in AquariusĪquarius is home to a number of Messier objects, including both clusters and nebulae. You can imagine stars pouring out from the Water Jar into the open mouth of Piscis Austrinus. The orange dashed oval region is the Water Jar asterism. Imagine a cascade of faint stars as water, visible in very dark skies, making a zigzag stream of stars, flowing down toward Fomalhaut. This little pattern, shown within the orange dashed oval in the star map, is called the Water Jar in Aquarius. If your sky is dark enough, you can see a little asterism – or noticeable pattern of stars within Aquarius – just to the left of the star Sadalmelik. A triple star (visual only, not physically related) is the stars of Psi Aquarii. The next brightest star is magnitude 3.27 Delta Aquarii, or Skat. The two stars are ten degrees apart, or about the width of your fist held at arm’s length. The two brightest stars in Aquarius are the magnitude 2.9 Beta Aquarii, or Sadalsuud, and the magnitude 2.95 Alpha Aquarii, or Sadalmelik. By the way, because it’s in such an apparently empty part of the sky, Fomalhaut is sometimes called the Loneliest Star. In the sky, you’ll see a zigzag line of stars leading from Aquarius to Fomalhaut, the only bright star in the Celestial Sea. Aquarius the Water Bearer is usually portrayed as a man pouring a stream of water into the mouth of the Southern Fish, which is interesting since fish don’t drink water. The brightest star in this “watery” region of the sky is Fomalhaut in Piscis Austrinus the Southern Fish. It’s here we find Cetus the Whale, Pisces the Fish, Eridanus the River, and Piscis Austrinus the Southern Fish. In western sky lore, early stargazers associated the star patterns here with water in a celestial sea. The stars in this part of the sky tend to be faint. This part of the sky looks dark and deep, but of course there are stars here, as there are everywhere on the heavenly globe. A sea in the skyĪquarius lies in a region of the sky sometimes called the Sea. Or try one month later – in early November – around 8 p.m. You’ll see Aquarius highest in the sky in early October around 10 p.m. South of the equator, it’s found overhead or high in the northern sky. And you can use the Great Square of Pegasus to guide you toward Aquarius.įrom northerly latitudes, this constellation appears in the southern sky. Aquarius is just east of another zodiacal constellation, Capricornus. The best time to spot Aquarius is in the evening during a Northern Hemisphere autumn or Southern Hemisphere spring. Venus will cross through Aquarius in late January and early February, brushing past Neptune on February 14 and 15, 2023. Neptune is currently in Aquarius and will be there through early 2023. It’s one of the 13 constellations of the zodiac, which means the sun, moon and planets occasionally pass within its boundaries. There aren’t many bright stars in this constellation, and you’ll need a dark sky to get a good look at it. Lying on our sky’s dome between the constellations Capricornus and Pisces, Aquarius the Water Bearer is tricky to spot. You can see it best on a fall evening in the Northern Hemisphere or a spring evening in the Southern Hemisphere. Aquarius the Water Bearer is a constellation of the zodiac that contains mostly dim stars.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |